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Kmart's Real Value

The discount retailer gets a boost once again for its land assets.

Discount retailer Kmart Holdings(NASDAQ:KMRT) saw its stock price rise 17% after analysts at Deutsche Bank said its real estate could be worth more than $150 a share. This was similar to last month's 14% stock boost after Kmart announced it was selling 24 stores to Home Depot(NYSE:HD). The real estate bubble lives!

The investment bank examined 37 retailers and found eight of them were selling below their net asset value per share. Kmart's key to unlocking its value was its long-term leases and the low cost of rent per square foot.

Kmart, the third-largest discount retailer behind Wal-Mart(NYSE:WMT) and Target(NYSE:TGT), has been selling off its underperforming stores at premium prices. On average it has been able to garner about $15.2 million per store because they are located in urban, high-traffic areas. Add in that the average lease still has 17 years remaining, options to renew, virtually no debt since it was eliminated during bankruptcy proceedings, average rent of $2.03 per foot -- compared with $10.07 per square foot for the retail group as a whole -- and you have some seriously undervalued assets.

The Deutsche Bank report has sparked rumors again that Kmart is actually performing a slo-mo liquidation. It's too big to be sold off all at once, so selling off parcels to Home Depot and Sears(NYSE:S) -- another of the retailers with undervalued assets -- is a smart strategy.

While Kmart had no comment on the Deutsche Bank speculation, in the past management has stated that it is committed to restoring the discounter's good name, and not as one Fool used to call it, "Came Apart." There is some credence to that as the company has been focusing on core merchandise and growing profits.

Still, the report noted that the department stores were "the mother lode of real estate value." The retail market is notoriously ferocious, and many doubt Kmart can return to its former glory.

In addition to Kmart and Sears, the other asset value plays included Federated Department Stores, Saks, Toys "R" Us, Dillard's, ShopKo Stores and Winn-Dixie. ShopKo was said to be the most undervalued of the eight.

Whether Kmart is really interested in turning itself around or is surreptitiously liquidating itself remains to be seen. Or, as Yogi Berra said, "You can observe a lot by watching."

Yogi Berra is one of Fool contributor Rich Duprey's all-time favorite Yankees. He does not own any stocks mentioned in this article.

Author

Rich has been a Fool since 1998 and writing for the site since 2004. After 20 years of patrolling the mean streets of suburbia, he hung up his badge and gun to take up a pen full time.

Having made the streets safe for Truth, Justice and Krispy Kreme donuts, he now patrols the markets looking for companies he can lock up as long-term holdings in a portfolio. So follow him on Facebook and Twitter for the most important industry news in retail and consumer products and other great stories.